I just thought of this. Marvel Land would be a great game for a speed run because there are many hidden warps throughout the game. Some warps take you forward; some take you backwards. These warps let you bypass many levels, but there's a catch: in order to defeat the final boss, you need to have beaten all the previous bosses. In theory, you should be able to beat the bosses in any order you please. I'm not sure about that one.

So the challenge becomes learning the location of all the warp areas, plotting the optimal route without skipping any of the bosses, and (of course) running as fast as you can.

samsonlonghair wrote:2D platformer known for speed? C'mon, this question practically answers itself: Sonic the Hedgehog is the obvious choice. You can complete Green Hill Zone Act 1 in less than sixty seconds.

If you are really good, you can take down the entire Green Hill Zone in 66 seconds I believe, give or take a second. I've not managed it yet though, as Green Hill Zone 2 is... well, its fucked.

Sonic 3 is a surprisingly interesting speed run. It might look slow on the surface, but it is laced with some of the most interesting tricks in the original trilogy.

Kid Chameleon is another game I find fairly interesting for speed runs, since there are so many ways to tackle the game, and quite a few categories to speed run under. Its a weird game though, so I'd only really run it if you already enjoy the game as-is.

Honestly, it would be harder to find 2D platformers that aren't good for speed running. The only thing that would really disqualify a game, for me, would be an abundance of auto-scrollers. It just depends on what you like in your speed runs. I personally like a nice mix of tight, precise platforming and weird tricks/glitches, so Sonic is an obvious home for that.

Mighty Switch Force is a game built specifically for speedrunning. I'm not sure how long it takes to beat the whole game, but the levels last less than a minute if you're good, so it's probably pretty good for a segmented run or ILs.